


Water Cycles

by akaparalian



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Personal Growth, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 12:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19198453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: Kyo, in the aftermath.





	Water Cycles

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: seeing as this is set after the end of the series, this fic contains **spoilers** for the end of Fruits Basket! So if you're, for example, here because of the 2019 anime but haven't read the manga, consider yourself warned.
> 
> So! The first 1000 words or so of this have been sitting in Google Docs for about four years now, since the last time I did a full Furuba reread. With the new anime starting to really dig into some meat now, I've definitely had this series on the brain again, and finally finishing this fic was a good way to channel all of my Kyo feelings, haha. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It wasn’t like he _hated_ water, back before. It wasn’t — look, he tells himself, it wasn’t fucking weird. He could stand it, easy. He liked swimming, sometimes — liked the ocean, the repetitive pull of it, insisting he drift further and further away from shore. Certainly he bathed, and maybe it was perfunctory, maybe he didn’t linger under the showerhead, but God, at least it wasn’t like he was too freaked to clean himself or something.

He didn’t like getting splashed or splattered or ambushed, _hated_ getting rained on, but that wasn’t unusual, either, he reminds himself. Plenty of people hate the rain; it’s depressing, gray and heavy, clouding in his lungs. Drowning on dry land. Awful and cloying, and always _there_ , impossible to get out from under his skin. An itch he could never, ever scratch, a bruise that bloomed every time the clouds came over the sky and left him irritable, then just empty, livid and exhausted in turns. It always, always made him want to punch something.

Shit, though, it’s not like that’s a feeling he’s not used to.

He realizes what’s changed the first time he goes to leave the house and finds it raining — misting, really, just a drizzle — and thinks, _It’s just a short walk to the store, I don’t need an umbrella,_ and makes it there and back with a lightness he isn’t used to.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that the pleasant, easy feeling on his skin is the absence of a discomfort he’s never been without. It’s disconcerting; he’s barely home, errand fulfilled, groceries on the counter, before he’s out again, guilty-grateful that he didn’t see Tohru in the brief second he was back inside. That’s a small miracle all its own, really, but somehow he manages to miss her, knowing without even thinking about it that her special brand of caring, well-meaning and wonderful though it might be, is not what he needs right now.

He’s back out the door in under a minute, no errand this time, no idea where he’s going. He just runs, the sickly-sweet weightless feeling creeping up his arms where the light raindrops strike them and sinking into his mouth, his lungs, unfamiliar and desperate. He runs thoughtlessly, letting the rhythm of it draw him down into blankness; he loses track of time, night falling around him between one heartbeat and the next. 

He’s not quite sure where he is, when the darkness and the harsh artificial lights of nighttime shock him aware — the area’s vaguely familiar, but then the whole town is vaguely familiar. He does this a lot, after all. Less so recently, but. Still.

Guilt at the thought makes him turn around and head for home; she’ll be waiting for him, probably worried sick but trying her damndest not to show it. It’s another fuck-up on his endless list, to leave for hours like this without a warning, but the curious lightness is still on his skin, even now.

He gets back late, finally finding his way back to familiar territory and charting a course to home from there. He was right, she was worried; she kept dinner warm for him, though everyone else ate hours ago. He lets her talk while he eats, a meandering trip through her day that’s almost shockingly comforting, but it doesn’t make the lightness go away. If anything, it intensifies it — the low-burning guilt he’s used to feeling when he looks at her is gone, at least partially, and that makes everything else more crystalline, more sharp.

Love is fucking weird, he thinks, then tells her goodnight and clears his dishes and retreats upstairs to bed.

—

When he wakes up, it’s still raining.

“It’s awfully wet!” Tohru remarks from under her umbrella on the way to school (and doesn’t that make his skin crawl too, the way that every single thing in his life has been upended except for the fact that he has to fucking go to school). She’s side-eyeing him a little bit, even though her voice is as sweet and cheerful as ever, and it’s not hard to see why: Kyo is umbrellaless and increasingly rained on, hair plastered flat to his forehead.

“It’s been raining since yesterday,” he agrees, but makes no attempt to explain himself. He kind of hates himself for it, for not being open with her and not telling her why he’s acting weird, but he has no idea — _no_ idea — what else he can possibly say. _I have no fucking idea how much of my personality was mine and how much was the cat_ isn’t really the kind of baggage you want to dump on someone right after you start dating.

Which is probably pretty dumb, because it’s not like it’s some girl he barely knows, it’s _Tohru_ , but whatever. Kyo came to terms with the fact that he’s pretty dumb a long time ago. 

She doesn’t try to bring it up again, just changes the subject and chatters on about something else, a comfortable blanket of sound to wash over Kyo’s ears, but he knows she hasn’t dismissed the question entirely. Every once in a while, she’ll give him a look that’s just half a second too long, or just the tiniest bit too concerned, and then quickly turn away as soon as she notices him noticing her.

By the time they get to school, Kyo’s soaked through, and _shit_ , is he glad Yuki had to get here early for student council shit today. This way he has a chance to dry off as best he can in the bathroom before class. He tells Tohru to go on without him and ducks into the boys’ room, pawing at himself with paper towels until his shirt is, at least, not sticking to his body any more, and he’s not going to drip anything on the floor. He’s spared the indignity of any of the Sohma boys finding him in there, thank God; the only people that wander through are a couple of random second-years he doesn’t recognize, and they look at him askance but otherwise leave him be, which suits Kyo just fine.

He doesn’t even scowl at them too much or ask them what they’re looking at, but he’s not sure if that’s zodiac shit or just a sign of personal growth, so he calls it a draw.

He slips into class with just a couple of minutes to spare; Tohru is off to the side with Uotani and Hanajima, of course, but she looks up when he enters the room like she’s being drawn to a magnet and she smiles. He smiles back, half out of reflex; Uotani smirks at him knowingly and he wipes the look from his face. Right, how dare he _smile_ at his _girlfriend_ in her presence.

She laughs at him as he sits down as if she knows what he was thinking. Asshole.

“What’s funny, Uo-chan?” Tohru asks, looking back and forth between the two of them curiously.

“Nothing, nothing,” Uotani says, still laughing even as Kyo flips her off. Actually, that just makes her laugh harder. “Just, some mushrooms just can’t change their spots, is all.”

Something in Kyo’s stomach kind of flips at that, and he hates himself for it a little.

“Mushrooms…?”

“Don’t worry about it, Tohru-chan.”

Thank _God_ , that’s when Mayu-sensei finally decides to saunter in the door. Kyo doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see her.

Class is class; he spends most of it listening to the rain thump against the window and rubbing idly at the spot on his wrist where the bracelet used to sit. It’s odd, but he — he really does miss it, in a lot of ways. Not, obviously, what it was holding back, but without the weight of the bracelet itself his arm feels too light, and it’s a feeling that spreads up into his entire body, like he’s at risk of floating away. It seems like it should be pleasant, but it just isn’t, quite, and that’s what worries him the most.

He could, he realizes, probably talk to someone about it. Not Yuki, God forbid, but — maybe Haru wouldn’t be so bad, or even maybe Hatori or Shigure. He’s not the only one experiencing this, surely, or something similar. He _certainly_ isn’t the only one whose entire fucking world has just been rocked, so even if none of them can relate to exactly what he’s going through — and he certainly wouldn’t doubt that; a bitter voice whispers, _Even with the curse destroyed, it still marks you as different, the cat is going to keep you separate forever, you don’t get to be one of them even now_ — surely they’re going through _something_ , and there’s, well, a very limited pool of people he could hash this out with. It’s not like he could just go talk to a shrink. So even if they don’t share exactly his same feelings, same experiences… well. Beggars can’t be choosers.

He weighs it in his mind for days and days, turning the idea over, not quite able to summon the strength to punch a number into the phone and say, “Let’s talk.” He could, he tells himself fiercely; he’s no coward, he can handle uncomfortable things, and anyway it’s not like he’s _afraid_ of talking about his feelings. He’s not some dumb he-man. He can admit when he’s hurting, okay? It’s just a question of whether or not he _wants_ to.

Eventually, he’s alone with Haru for a few minutes after school, waiting for Tohru to finish running an errand for a teacher while Haru lingers by his shoe locker, digging around for something he’s misplaced, and it just — comes out.

_I’m not a coward,_ Kyo thinks, and he says, “Shit’s been weird lately, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hatsuharu agrees, face still halfway inside his locker as he roots around.

Kyo nods.

They leave it at that.

—

He knocks on Tohru’s door a few nights later; the hour is late enough that Shigure will give him shit for it if he sees Kyo in the hallway, but not late enough that there’s not still light creeping out from under her door. His knock is quiet, not uncertain but uncharacteristically subdued; immediately he hears muffled movement, and the door swings open only a few seconds later.

“Kyo-kun!” she says, and he’s not even thinking about the fact that she’s in her pajamas, her hair clouding softly around her face, lit by the gentle glow of her bedside lamp from across the room.

“Uh, hi,” he replies, clearing his throat. Now that he’s here, he’s kicking himself for not figuring out exactly what he wanted to say earlier, for not thinking this through more — which, of course, is the story of his fucking life, he thinks a little sourly. It’s not like he can just say _Do you think I’m still the same person?_ — though, to be honest, a part of him wants to. At least that would be the direct route.

When he says nothing after a few long moments, Tohru leans a little against her doorframe and smiles at him, familiar and easy and warm. “Is something the matter?” she asks, her voice soft with the lateness of the hour and with an incredible fondness, an incredible _love_ , that honestly still scares Kyo shitless.

He shakes his head a little, his bare feet shifting on the floorboards. He tries to hold her gaze, but eventually he can’t quite manage it, bowed and humbled, as ever, by the depth and warmth of the caring there.

As much as that’s what he’s here for — as much as that caring is a part of her, impossible to separate out or ignore, and he’s here for _her,_ because he loves her and needs her — he can’t quite look directly at her right now. To say it’s like staring into the sun seems to Kyo both cliche and inadequate, but nevertheless is the best he can do.

“It’s nothing,” he says, then shakes his head a little, frowning. “I mean, it’s not nothing, it’s just — it’s not, you know —” He scrubs a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself, and glances over her shoulder, into her room. “Can I come in?”

Shigure is _definitely_ going to give him shit if (when, Kyo admits to himself, already defeated; the bastard seems to have a sixth sense for these things) he finds out, but Tohru doesn’t even hesitate, pulling the door wide and stepping back to let Kyo through.

“Of course,” she says, still smiling gently, like there’s nothing to it at all — like Kyo comes to her room at night, teetering right on the edge of a dark, uncertain feeling, all the time.

Kyo wonders if he’s imagining the way the energy in the room feels different now than it ever has before — or, at least, wonders if he’s the only one who feels it. This obviously isn’t the first time he’s been in her room, or even alone with her in her room, but… everything’s changing, lately. He shakes his head to clear it as he walks past her, stopping in the middle of the floor. That so, _so_ isn’t the point. He looks down at the floor, then looks out the window at the dark trees, then turns slightly to look over his shoulder at Tohru.

She shuts the door with a quiet _snick_ , and the smile fades from her face just slightly, replaced by a more serious expression as she takes one step toward him, then another. She half-extends a hand toward him without seeming to realize it, her fingers fluttering like she wants to grab his sleeve. God, but he loves her. He didn’t even know human beings were capable of this kind of love — the kind that, apparently, can literally rewrite fate or alter the will of gods — he thinks as she takes another small step toward him, let alone that _he_ was capable of it. Let alone that he’d _get_ it — and yet, here she is.

In a way, though, that only makes things more difficult for him, at least at this exact moment. 

Tohru makes no effort to fill the silence; she takes another step closer, close enough now that she _could_ reach out and touch him, but beyond that, she only watches his face. He wonders what she sees. She can be completely oblivious about the most obvious things, but damn if she can’t also be perceptive just when she needs to be. She sees the things he wishes he could hide, and the things he never even realized he _was_ hiding. She always has.

Finally, Kyo looks at her — looks right at her, refusing to hide away from her, not now and not ever again, if he can help it — and clears his throat. _Do you think I’m still the same person?_

“A little while ago,” he starts, his voice a little gruff, “I was going to the store, and I didn’t realize that it was raining until I got outside. But I didn’t — I didn’t even really think about getting an umbrella. I was just… fine.” 

He exhales harshly; Tohru says nothing, just watching him quietly with an encouraging little smile.

“I know that’s basically nothing,” he says eventually. Tohru shakes her head, a minute motion, but still doesn’t speak, so he continues, “I just — I guess I never really, fully recognized how much of me was _me_ , and how much was the cat, because I thought I would always _be_ the cat.” He pauses and exhales again, through his nose. “It’s not like I don’t know — didn’t know — that I was my own person, but clearly part of me really _was_ the cat, too, or else I wouldn’t have… changed.”

This time, when he falls silent Tohru makes a small noise in her throat, a little hum that manages to convey a depth of emotion without words. “It’s strange to adjust to something new, even if it’s a good change,” she says, tilting her head. “And even a good change can have bad parts, too.”

“I don’t think it _is_ bad,” Kyo insists, scrubbing at his hair. “It’s just — yeah. It’s strange. And I guess I’ve just been thinking, if little things have changed, what if big things have changed, too?” He pauses. “What if I just never notice?”

Tohru pauses for a long moment, tipping her head to the side a little as she thinks. There’s a slight crease between her brows, not quite troubled, but certainly serious. Kyo tries not to fidget or look too obviously impatient; he’s not trying to rush her. Still, the longer they stand there in the quiet of her bedroom, his fears hanging thickly in the air between them like a miasma, the more he wants to say _You know what, I’m being stupid, forget it,_ turn away, tuck his tail between his legs and bring this up again another time — or maybe never. He bites his lip against the urge. 

Finally, the pinch between Tohru’s brows loosens a little, and she opens her mouth to speak. Even before she’s actually said anything, Kyo feels an intense sense of relief.

“Everyone changes with time, Kyo-kun,” she says, her voice gentle, but firm in its own way — and, most of all, not at all pitying. Empathetic, maybe, or sympathetic, but never pitying, thank God. “No one stays the same for their whole life. We all learn and grow, and are shaped by our circumstances. Sometimes in good ways, and sometimes bad.”

She pauses again, her eyes tracking over Kyo’s face quickly like she’s searching for something. He’s got no idea what, but she must find it, because she says, “When my mother died, I changed.”

Kyo can’t help but jolt; even now, she rarely addresses the topic so openly, or so bluntly. His mouth falls open, almost as though he’s going to interrupt or tell her to stop talking, but nothing comes out. He shuts his mouth again with a slight snap of teeth, his jaw clenching.

“But when I met you, Kyo-kun,” Tohru continues, with only a slight smile to acknowledge that she noticed his reaction, her voice remaining completely steady, “I changed then, too. I’ve changed in good ways and bad ways, just like everyone else. But I’m still the same person — I’m still Honda Tohru. And you,” she adds, reaching out and laying a hand on his chest, directly over his heart, “are still Sohma Kyo-kun. The same Sohma Kyo-kun that I’ve always known, even if you have changed little by little. You’re still _you_.”

Kyo sucks in a deep breath through his teeth. On instinct, one of his hands comes up to cover hers, squeezing lightly. 

“I just don’t want you to…” He pauses, sighing in frustration, taking great care to avoid the word _disillusioned._ “I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize that I’m not who you thought I was.”

He thinks of not just Tohru when he says it, though of course it’s Tohru who’s standing here with him, face tipped up in the soft, low light, hand still covering his heart, perhaps feeling for his heartbeat. He thinks of his Shishou, of Haru and Kagura and Momiji and Shigure — hell, even of Yuki.

“What if the me you love isn’t _me?_ ” he asks finally, squeezing his eyes shut tight for just a moment, just long enough to get the words out. “What if that part was the cat?”

There’s a beat of silence. When Kyo opens his eyes again, it’s to an expression of raw shock on Tohru’s face; on anyone else, it might even come close to fury. As he watches, though, it softens right before his eyes, replaced with something much more like understanding — pain, empathy. Beneath all of it, always, love. So much love, in fact, that before she even speaks, Kyo feels a warm spark of reassurance.

“I don’t love any _part_ of you,” Tohru says, her voice so soft now that it’s almost a whisper. She leans in closer; the hand that isn’t still covering his heart comes up to cup his cheek. “I love _all_ of you, becuase no one part of you is ‘Kyo-kun.’ You’re more than the sum of your parts, and I love the _whole_ you. And,” she adds, with a tiny twist of her lips, seeing right through him just like she’s always done, “so does everyone else in your life, all of your precious people. We all see you shining brightly in front of us, and even if some of you was the cat, the Kyo-kun that’s left is still shining — shining even more brightly now that the curse is gone.”

Kyo stares down at her, a little stunned, a little floored. He squeezes the hand over his heart again and dazedly thinks, _I should have known she’d know_. He wasn’t just worried about losing her, though of course that fear was top of mind, with their relationship still so new. Deeper down, though, there had been a part of him that whispered, _She’ll just be the first one to go. She won’t be the last._

Which is ridiculous; the idea that Tohru has ever been anything less than take-a-bullet-for-you loyal to those she loves is laughable. But knowing his fears were ridiculous hadn’t made Kyo any less afraid.

_She really is too damn perceptive sometimes,_ he thinks, and smiles.

“It’s honestly kind of weird how you always know just what to say,” he murmurs, not even bothering to try and control the raw emotion running through his voice, though using humor as a diversionary tactic is painfully transparent, he knows. “You should be a motivational speaker or something. Or… or a professional friend.”

Tohru blinks up at him, clearly reading his expression carefully, then smiles; whatever she finds must satisfy her, because instead of bringing the conversation back around to serious matters, she allows Kyo’s change of topic to stand.

“Professional friend?” she says, her eyes sparkling, though her tone is still a little serious. “Do you think that would work?”

Kyo snorts a laugh. “If anyone could be such a good friend that people’d be willing to pay them for it, it would be you.” He reaches out with his free hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, not bothered when some of it falls right back into place. “Better start charging Hanajima and the Yankee for back-wages owed. And Yuki, too,” he adds, with a slightly more vicious smile. “Especially Yuki. Hell, charge him double.”

She giggles. “Oh?” she asks, voice teasing and light. “But not Kyo-kun?”

“Boyfriends are different, right?” Kyo asks her seriously. “Surely you’d have to give me a discount, at least.”

“But even if I’m your girlfriend, I’m your friend-friend too,” she points out. Kyo doesn’t fail to notice the way she blushes, just a little, when she says _girlfriend_ — but then, he still blushes at calling himself her boyfriend, too. Those titles may be exciting as hell, but even a few weeks in, they’re still new, and — well. It’s going to take a while for the both of them to stop blushing.

“Friend-friend?” Kyo asks, because that at least seems pretty safe. Tohru wrinkles her nose at him a little as she laughs, clearly more than aware of the teasing, but she beams up at him all the same. 

“Of course! Kyo-kun, you’re one of my truest friends, even without being my — being anything else.” Her blush is more intense now, but she adds, “I’m just lucky to have so many friends who are so dear to me.”

He can’t help but think that these days she probably counts even Akito within that number, and as much as that thought admittedly still makes him want to tear his hair out, it also makes it all but impossible not to kiss her — and what’s the point of resisting? It’s not like there’s even anyone around to see.

Tohru’s lips part softly under his, and exhalation of surprise, or perhaps relief; she’s blushing again when she pulls back, but when she opens her eyes, she holds his gaze steadily.

Kyo clears his throat. “Just as long as you don’t go around doing that with too many of your other friends.”

“No,” Tohru agrees, sounding a little breathless. “Some things are just for boyfriends or girlfriends.”

“Not friend-friends?” Kyo teases, laying a hand at the crook of her neck just briefly.

She smiles. “Goodnight, Kyo-kun,” she says, though she does nothing to pull away from him; if anything, she leans in even closer.

Kyo stares down at her, feels her pressed against him more or less toe to tip. He thinks about kissing her again — in fact, he thinks about it possibly a little bit too hard.

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing, slowly starting the process of disentangling himself from her embrace. “Good night.”

He pads slowly down the hallway towards his room with his head buzzing; her door doesn’t audibly close behind him until he’s far enough away that he’s bound to have faded into the shadows, far from the light of her lamp. The floorboards loudly creak under him just as he gets to his own door, and he curses under his breath. Shigure is _definitely_ going to know now, meaning there’s a great big pile of shit coming with Kyo’s name on it.

Still, it’s not as though he regrets going to see her, not in the slightest. He feels better — a little, at least. He’d kind of known he would. Tohru is, quite literally, for the Sohma clan at large, a miracle worker. Hearing her take wasn’t an instant fix; nothing could have been, really. But his chest feels lighter and more solid all at once — he is both freer and more grounded, now that he’s had a glimpse at the version of himself that she sees.

Safely in bed, his eyes slip closed as his mouth curls slowly into a smile. That version of himself — Tohru’s vision of him — never fails to take his breath away. Somehow, he thinks that if he can even come close to being that in his own eyes, then he’ll be just fine, cat or no fuckin’ cat.

—

In the morning, Kyo wakes up to the sound of rain pattering on the roof. 

He stands in the entryway for long moments as Tohru and Yuki wait just outside for him to join them on the walk to school, debating with himself. Eventually, he grabs an umbrella.Tohru and Yuki both seem to take more note of it than he’d expect, which makes him wonder, a little, what the rat is thinking. But neither says anything, and all in all, their journey that morning is a normal one.

Just before they step inside the school building, with classmates and underclassmen bustling around him — he hears Momiji’s loud, distinctive chatter in the crowd somewhere — Kyo stops, standing just outside the protective cover of the eaves. He hesitates for just a split second, and then, casually, he tips back the umbrella, closing his eyes and letting the water run down his face.

“Kyo-kun?” he hears Tohru ask, not too far away. He nods, though he’s not quite sure what he’s agreeing to.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” he says, and opens his eyes to follow her inside.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like, you can find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/akaparalian) or [Tumblr.](http://floralegia.tumblr.com) Thanks for reading!


End file.
